Wind turbines located on Port Malcolm near Port Hawkesbury, Cape Breton. Beothuk Energy announced a deal on Wednesday to finance and operate a wind farm in Newfoundland.

Its proposed $4-billion wind energy project off the southern tip of Nova Scotia is still in the planning stage, but Beothuk Energy is already moving ahead with a deal to finance and operate another offshore wind farm in Newfoundland.

On Wednesday, St. John’s, Newfoundland-based Beothuk Energy announced it has inked a deal with Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, an investor in offshore wind farms.

“We are looking forward to participating in developing the St. George’s Bay project together with Beothuk,” Christina Grumstrup Sørensen, a senior partner with Copenhagen Infrastructure, said in a statement.

“We see significant potential for offshore wind in Atlantic Canada due to strong winds, shallow water and an existing industry with experience in working in an offshore environment for many years.”

The two privately-held companies are keeping the financial details of the deal under wraps. But what is known is that Copenhagen Infrastructure is getting an equity stake in the Beothuk Energy subsidiary set up to undertake the development and operation of the St. George’s Bay wind farm in exchange for financing the actual construction.

The two companies are also jointly funding the development phase of the project, a 180-megawatt wind farm off the southwestern tip of Newfoundland and Labrador, which is expected to cost roughly $500 million.

That’s enough energy to power more than 150,000 households and the construction phase of the project is expected to create 500 jobs.

“We hope to start construction in 2019 … and be ready by 2022,” Kirby Mercer, chairman and chief executive officer of Beothuk Energy, said in an interview Wednesday.

Due to its proximity to Emera’s Maritime Link energy transmission project, Beothuk’s Newfoundland wind farm could sell its electricity to either Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. Mercer indicated Beothuk is still considering several possibilities for the sale of that energy.

The smallest of Beothuk’s proposed offshore wind farms, the St. George’s Bay project is the first and only one to be financed so far.

That wind farm provides Copenhagen Infrastructure with an entry in to the North American green energy market. Although the company already has a lease for an offshore wind project near Massachusetts , the St. George’s Bay project will be its first on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

“They’re looking to get into the United States,” said Mercer. “They’re expecting that market to explode.”

The basis for that optimism is a U.S. Department of Energy report, Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States, released last year. In that report, the American government predicted offshore wind farms could provide up to 86 gigawatts of energy to the United States by 2050.

Beothuk is bullish on the U.S. wind energy sector. The company’s proposed 1,000-megawatt project for southern Nova Scotia would have its power sold to New England through a proposed 200-km underwater transmission line dubbed the Can-Am Link.

“There are several ground sites being proposed … from New Hampshire to Boston … and there could even be a leg to New York,” said Mercer. “We’ve been having a lot of talks south of the border.”

That project was to be comprised of 120 turbines but Mercer said the company may use fewer , larger turbines to generate the same amount of energy.

“That figure was based on six or seven-megawatt turbines and for our project we’re now planning to use eight-megawatt turbines,” he said. “These things evolve.”

A top executive at Beothuk would not divulge building costs for all of the projects, but did say the other projects would have comparable costs per megawatt to those of the Yarmouth wind farm. That would put the investment needed to build all of Beothuk’s proposed wind farms — which are to have a total energy output of 3,380 megawatts — at $13.5 billion.

“We have identified the sources (of financing) to move the projects forward,” said Mercer. “The first step was Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.”

The proposed wind farms’ turbines will be feature structures with 90-metre blades connected to a central hub rising 130 metres from sea level. That means the upper tip of these turbine’s blades will rise higher above sea level than if Halifax’s Fenwick Tower were placed atop Purdy’s Wharf.

Using bigger turbines offshore where there are stronger and steadier winds greatly improves a wind farm’s efficiency and helps make it more price competitive with other forms of energy, said Mercer.

Beothuk needs to land power purchase agreements and complete environmental assessments before being able to go ahead with its wind farms, including the one in Burgeo Banks off the coast of southern Newfoundland, the two off the coasts of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, and another in St. Ann’s Bay as well as the one near Yarmouth.

Mercer said Copenhagen Infrastructure's expertise in wind farms and other green energy will be a great asset in moving these projects forward.

“Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners brings tremendous capabilities and experience to the table as well as capital to help us quickly become one of Canada’s leading wind power developers and the first with an offshore project.”

So far, Copenhagen Infrastructure has invested in two offshore wind farms, the 588-megawatt Beatrice project in Scotland and the 402-megawatt Veja Mate project in the German North Sea.